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A SKETCH BY 

R.'^ELLSWORTH CALL, M. Sc, M. A M D 



PUBLISHED BY 

LOUISVILLE & NASHVILLE RAILROAD CO. 

PASSENGER DEPARTMENT. 







SOURIER-JOURNAl JOB PRINTIN6 CO., LOUISVILLE. 






i 

? MAMMOTH CAVE 



^pHE wonderful work of water in sculpturing the 
vu surface of the earth is matter of common ob- 
servation and of common. remark. Hill and valley, 

gorge, canon and water- 
fall, all have been seen 
I w if"i Ultimate relation; no rock 

' i| so hard that it can forever 

5 resist the action of the stream; 

no mountain mass so great that it 
will not some time yield entirely to 
water ; no valley so deep it may not be 
graven deeper or even filled to top by the transport- 
ing power of running streams. These changes all 
occur on the surface, and from our familiarity with 
them fail, often, to engage our close attention. 

But there is no rock so dense that through it 
water will not pass; no union of particles so intimate 
but the secret, chemical processes of the world 
beneath can sever them; no place where all condi- 



tions of ordinary change associated with surface 
laws are so variable as in the underground world. 

The visitor to Mammoth Cave must not forget the 
surface world when he walks through its immense 
gorges, its magnificent avenues, its Titanic halls, its 
star-bedecked domes. On every hand he will see 
a wealth of features which always emphasize the 
aspects of the outer world and explain them in a 
new language. He will see solution so slow that it 
is measured by tens of thousands of decades; he 
will note crystallization so tedious that he will be 
driven to madness should he attempt to compass the 
years that have passed since the process began. 
Should he question the fossil forms which sometimes 
thickly stud the cliffs and ledges along which he will 
pass they might tell to him a story beside which the 
wildest creation of the Orient would appear but as 
a tale of the nursery. In a thousand ways will he 
be impressed with the persistency of Nature's force- 
ful methods. If he be a man accustomed to reflec- 
tion he will come to the upper world a wiser man; 
if he be of poetic turn the somber shades through 
which he has just passed, the great avenues open- 
ing beyond into regions of infinite gloom, the lovely 
crystals "of purest ray serene" that reflect the 




radiance of his light into still another corner of 
eternal darkness and instead of revealing its out- 
lines or a new beauty but 
Extends its bounds, then 
ps fancy will take a new 
direction and his poems a 
H different tenor. 
_:' Mammoth Cave owes 
its discovery to an acci- 
dent, so the story goes, 
which happened in the 
year 1809. It is the 
''"'"' old story of a hunter 

and a bear, the pursue/ and the pursued. The bear 
was wounded and sought its lair in a vain endeavor 
to escape. Hutchins, for such was the hunter's 
name, lost no time in acquainting others with this 
important discovery, and Mammoth Cave became 
both a fact of history and of science. It is strange 
to relate that its first exploitation was connected 
with simply mercenary motives and that saltpetre, 
intended for use in gunpowder and connected with 
the war of 1812, was the incentive that led to more 
complete examination. The men who mined the 
soft soil, rich in nitre, are the men who first gave to 



the outside world any reliable information of the 
great extent of this now famous world's wonder. 
Albeit their stories savored of the wonderful to an 
extent that many pronounced them romances, a 
knowledge of the cave that was reaUy quite exact 
became common property and the immense cavern 
soon took its place among the great natural features 
of earth. 

A visit to Mammoth Cave constitutes a unique 
experience in one's search of pleasure and the mar- 
velous. From the moment of arrival at the quaint 
old hostelry, which dates so far back toward the 
beginning of the century that it is really a part of 
the history of the cavern, to the last backward look 
which is always given when the top of the rough 
stairway of rock, at the entrance, is reached on the^ 
return from the depths, there is continuous surpri: 
new experience, pleasant memories, i]| 
altogether unmixed with regret. The, 
surroundings are not very unlike 
those which the first visitors 
saw. The old lumbeiing • < 
stage-coach has given way to 
the modern railway, with its 
comforts and speed; the tre^^^ 




LOVERS LEAP. 



of the forest are larger but just as numerous ; the 
wild flowers spring up as abundantly and liven 
the landscape as charmingly now as formerly; the 
woods are as full of feathered songsters, the neigh- 
boring river as prolific in brilliant and graceful fish, 
the cliffs which line its course as grand and glorious 
as when Hutchins first shot that famous bear. 

Within the cavern the changes which have oc- 
curred since the days of saltpetre mining are less 
conspicuous still. In every essential respect the 
visitor sees the same features, the same angles, the 
same crystals — save where early Vandal hands have 
robbed some of the alcoves and halls of their beautiful 
forms; the same springs gush forth from dark re- 
cesses, and the same streams disappear with many 
a dash and reverberation into the same pits and 
darksome crevices. The very pipes and supports 
used by the workers in **peter-dirt" stand now as 
when left by them nearly a century ago. The 
famed houses in which the unfortunate consumptives 
sought relief from a malady which alone needed 
sunshine for momentary respite, but which no skill 
or art of man could stay, still stand on the left in 
the great recess called the Main Cave. The tracks 
made by feet of patient oxen and ruts worn by wheel 



of creaking wagon still remain to tell of underground 
toil in a gloom not less than that of famed Tartarus. 
The rocks piled high on either side for a distance of 
a half mile or more tell of the work needed to get the 
much-sought nitrate to the upper world. Rude hie- 
roglyphic scratches on walls tell of Bishop, of 
Brantsford, of Miller and others who first sought to 
unravel the mysteries of its branching avenues or to 
sound the depths of its solitary recesses. Occasion- 
ally, even yet, fragments of half-burned reeds, a 
lost moccasin, a wooden-bowl, tell of visits of abo- 
rigines long before foot of civilized man had awakened 
the echoes of the lofty domes. Change there has 
been, but it is so slow,. so secret, if one please, that 
impressions formed th;^e-quarters of a century ag^d 
are paralleled by those which 
are awakened to-day. There 
is only that change which comes 
from wider acquaintance with 
the windings of the chambers 
into those that are new 
and formerly unknown, 
a change which makes 
the visitor despair of ever 
fully unraveling all the 




EENTUOKY MONUMBNT, 



relations of the passages and crevices along which 
he journeys or through which he crawls. The same 
massive rocks, scattered in the 
a me profusion, meet the eye 
)ii every hand, for the Cave 
has been preserved in all its 
PJ beauty as an original work 
of nature. The bridges over 
rivers and stairs leading up 
^impassable cliffs, the iron 
guards along places of danger 
alone tell the visitor of the 
work of man. 
It the visitur diiter the great cavern in company 
v/ith a chemist he will come forth well versed in 
Nature's secrets. For here he will learn how water 
charged with carbon dioxide has served as Nature's 
graving tools. On the roofs and walls he will dis- 
cover the effects which iron and manganese oxides 
yield on a background of gray limestone. He will 
learn something of crystallization and the beautiful 
forms which these masses of sulphate of lime and 
calcite assume. If he stop in the Fairy Grotto, or 
tarry along Gothic Avenue, or venture into some of 
the unfrequented passages miles away from the 




natural entrance, he will face enormous stalactites 
and tread upon massive stalagmites the beginning 
of which dates thousands of years back of the 
Christian era. In Martha's Vineyard, beyond the 
rivers, he will see those wonderful botryoidal forms 
of calcite which give to the locality its name. If he 
go far within Crystal Avenue he will learn how 
those wonderful acicular crystals of gypsum grow 
and spread out into a thousand fantastic forms, and 
simulate the flowers of the upper world, but whose 
petals are gigantic in comparison. Now and then 
he will see these fanciful beauties growing in plain 
defiance of the laws of gravitation and bending and 
twisting in a thousand devious ways. In the almost 
complete absence of water he will wonder how 
these forms were originally put into solution, and 
ask how are reproduced those beautiful crystals 
which fall, as white and silently as flakes of snow, 
at a sudden loud sound or echo. He will wonder at 
the thousands of cubic yards of solid rock which 
have been removed, and when he returns to the 
upper world and visits the laboratory of his chemist 
friend he will be chagrined at the puny processes of 
art. 

It is impossible to mention, less possible to de- 



scribe, all the objects of interest to visitors in this 
most gigantic cavern of the world, hi no respect 
have its attractions failed to meet the expectations 
of the intelligent visitor. To the unintelligent its 
story is as little understood as would be the famous 
lyrics of Homer or the marble poems of Praxitiles. 
The shells and corals which dot the walls of Echo 
River or boss the smooth walls of Gorin's Dome tell 
a story to those alone who have some intimate 
acquaintance with Nature. The blind insects — 
beetles, crickets, mites, gnats — the eyeless fish and 
crustaceans and leeches, the snow-white toadstools, 
all are meaningless to those who have never ques- 
tioned the physical cause of vision. The naturalist 
will find here a paradise, forms of life that are 
unique, that range frt)m vertebrate to worm, and 
llicsL J 11 u !1 him a story of antiquity and of life-law 

that only a naturalist 
may interpret. But if 
the visitor seeks the 
grand and impressive, if 
there be attraction in Sty- 
gian blackness, if the un- 
canny noises accompa- 
nying waters falling in 




standino 
.'hocks. 




THE ELEPHANTS 
HEADS. 



recesses that have yet escaped search, if the unison 
of sounds coming from the dark and unfathomed 
recesses of Echo River 
back to the ear with a 
harmony and beauty 
that no cathedral note 
ever yet equaled, find 
a response in any hu- 
man heart, then Mam- 
moth Cave will never 
cease to attract visitors 
of every degree and from every land. 

The Echo River is one of the most remarkable 
features in this most remarkable group of wonders. 
Only a small portion of its whole course is acces- 
sible to visitors, but this part is truly wonderful. 
At times the river flows with almost imperceptible 
current, while at other times it fills quite to the top 
the great River Hall, blotting out the Dead Sea and 
the River Styx, both of which are really parts of the 
underground stream. It is traversed by boats for 
a distance of quite half a mile, and a ride over its 
clear waters is one of the unique experiences of the 
world — nowhere else can it be duplicated. The 
voyager passes under a low arch for a short space 



and then the roof rises rapidly away from the water 
and he enters upon his subterranean water-journey 
in real fact. Nearly all the river is one vast reso- 
nator, its branching avenues and side crevices, its 
lofty roof of limestone rock, its ancient battlemented 
shores, all serve as reflectors of every sound, no 
matter how slight, and send it back intensified a 
thousand times, with its roughnesses blended into 
one sweet volume of glorious harmony. Nowhere 
on earth, or in it, can such rich tone, coming back 
to one with ever diminishing volume as it rolls 
down along the unknown halls and is reflected from 
secret chamber walls, be heard. Long experience 
on the part of the well-trained guides enables the 
production of the right notes to bring forth the 
wonders of Echo River, and no visitor hears them 
but is impressed with its glories. Time and again, 
for months, have we listened to these noble 
reverberations until they have become a part of our 
musical nature. 

Perhaps the largest single rock to be found, as a 
detached mass, in the cavern is the Giant's Coffin. 
Fact and fancy alike serve to make it attractive. 
Its mass is very great, and its weight, estimated on 
its measurements by taking the specific gravity of 




STAR CHAMBER 




limestone as com- 
monly given, is 
over two thou- 
sand tons. This 
immense rock has 
been torn from 
the side of the 
Main Cave, and 
when this fact 
was accomplished, 
away back in geo- 
logic times,an avenue 
was revealed which 
alone had rendered pos- 
sible, until William, the 
guide, found the Corkscrew, a visit to the 
remoter portions of the cavern. The rock upon 
which the name of Giant's Coffin has been so well 
bestowed is entirely of limestone, with a thick- 
ness of eighteen and a total length of forty-three 
feet. The visitor winds around it on the usual way 
in which he goes to the '*end of the Cave" on the 
long route. ''The Standing Rocks" are not far re- 
moved from this part of the cavern and have been 
similarly torn from the roof which is here nearly 



sixty feet high. They were detached at the same 
time and by the same causes, whatever they were, 
that made the Giant's Coffm a fact. But, in falling, 
they struck upon their edge and sank deeply enough 
in the material of the bottom to maintain that posi- 
tion. They are detached masses of limestone 
strata not more than two feet in thickness. 

Far within the great cavern occur many interest- 
ing and fantastic groupings of stalactitic matter that 
require but little imagination to conceive them as 
simulating familiar objects. Near the end of the 
remarkable Pass of El Ghor — a tortuous, narrow, 
but lofty, channel which marks the work of one of 
the latest of the underground streams — the walls 
above and on each side are one indescribable maze 
-of ealcite accumulations. ,^i^re, as indeed is true 

of all parts 
of M a m - 
moth Cave 
where crys- 
tallization is 
in progress, 
the under- 
ground traveler 
I ^^-^WH^^"'*'*''^ "^^^' proceeds along a 




DINNER IN THE CAVE. 



pathway which is not far below the surface of 
the ground. The characteristic phenomena which 
indicate approach to the surface are, first, the 
dripping of waters which only enter the channels 
of this subterranean world at points near the 
surface ; second, the growing stalactites, which 
are only at the upper levels ; and, third, the sand- 
stone strata which everywhere, in this part of Ken- 
tucky, cap the subcarboniferous limestone. When 
the uppermost limestone layers are worn or dis- 
solved away, the sandstones still higher, far more 
friable and yielding readily to the separatory power 
of v/ater, break away into immense masses or even 
into piles of rock which often completely close the 
passages and limit many large avenues. The mag- 
nificent avenue which opens from the Rotunda, and 
which, after the celebrated ornithologist, is named 
Audubon's Avenue, is entirely closed at a distance 
of a half mile by a vast mass of rock detached, in 
the manner described, from above. But a journey 
to its end is well worth the time and toil, for here is 
Olive's Bower, one of the most convenient of the 
smaller recesses in which stalactitic formation may 
be seen in progress ; at this locality occur some of 
the most beautiful of the growing stalactites. In the 



middle of the bower is a well of limpid water, every 
drop of which has played its part in adding a mite 
to the massive crystals above, and which are re- 
flected from its mirrored surface. Eventually, 
through some secret passage, the water finds a way 
to the Echo River, whence, in turn, it reaches the 
Green River and again circulates in the world out- 
side. 

In many portions of those wonderfully intricate 
channels known as Spark's Avenue and Pensico 
Avenue, the tourist may hear reverberations of foot- 
falls and wonderfully sweet echoes of human voices 
coming apparently from the depths below. These 
points, several of which are particularly excellent, 
are really crossings /of his own passageway over 
others still beneath him. In one place in Pensico 
Avenue the listener actually stands above a dome 
which, as he sounds a particular note, 

''-'VH^K^ serves as a 

^^^^ iHlii gigantic reson- 

ance box, and 
takes up the vibra- 
tions of his voice 
)nly to send it back 
Lttuned and strength- 




RIV^R 8TTX. 




ened a thousand fold. The very 
earth beneath him is felt to tremble^ ^^' 
as the vibrations reach their ma: 
mum amplitude ; closely listeriing 
one may hear the sweet volume ^?-^ 
of sound rolling along avenues 
yet untrodden by human fett 
to be finally lost in the un- 
known depths. The cele- 
brated side passage known 
as Gothic Avenue presents intti c.^i- 
ing attractions which are of 
unique character. Among them are the stalactites 
which, abundant in this portion of the cavern, are 
the largest and most remarkable within its limits. 
Curious resemblances or historic and mythologic 
events together have conspired to furnish names to 
the largest of these. C^sar and Pompey, the Pil- 
lar of Hercules, the Oak Tree, the Bridal Cham- 
ber, the Elephants' Heads and the Wasps' Nests are 
among the names which the fancy of the visitor or 
the caprice of the guides has affixed to these relics 
of former water action. Except at a single locality 
this avenue, which is at the higher level of the cave, 
is quite dry, and little, if any, change is now in 



progress. Beyond the usual terminus, at the rock 
called Lovers' Leap, the avenue is quite closed by a 
vast mass of sandstone debris fallen from above. 
But down the steep hill at which the ** short route" 
generally ends leads a pathway which passes 
through a narrow passage in the vertical wall to the 
left, fifty feet below, into Elbow Crevice — a portion 
of the cavern which should be seen by all visitors. 
Beyond the crevice lie the Cooling Tub, Vulcan's 
Forge, Napoleon's Dome, Annetta's Dome, Sha- 
ler's Brook — in which alone are found the 
snow-white leeches — and several pits and domes 
but recently discovered. The sound of fall- 
ing waters comingy through small passages to 
the right or left informs the visitor that in 
this portion of the cave the processes of disintegra- 
tion and solution are in active progress. From the 
entrance of Gothic Avenue to Annetta's Dome the 
visitor will have passed from the highest to the third 
level. Around him and near him are pits which 
extend downward to the level of Echo River, which 
is not far distant from this chaotic locality. A hun- 
dred objects are here that command one ; there are 
poems registered in the rocks, fairy forms of bygone 
ages that tell of life and sunshine ; and hard by thi-*^ 




CORKSCREW. 



frail record of beauty lies 
a fossil story of ruin and 
death. The observer will 
here find record of a former 
world of organisms with 
whose diminutive cousins 
only has he now intimate 
acquaintance. Here, in 
sleep and silence enshrined, 
they rest, small tattlers of 
continental secrets ! 
hi this portion of the cave the walls best exhibit 
those phenomena which are always interpreted as 
meaning the attrition^ of matter carried along by 
running water. The passages are narrow, but high; 
they become broader below. In the dim light of the 
visitor's lamp the effect of a perspective drawing is 
produced on looking upward, and the roofs of the 
avenues appear to be far away. Pebbles, derived 
from a thin layer of conglomerate far above, strew 
the pathway and tell the story of wear and denuda- 
tion. Animal life is not as abundant in this locality 
as it is at the higher levels, but enough may be 
found to demonstrate that no portion of the cavern in 
which water is found is devoid of some organic forms. 



Perhaps visitors to Mammoth Cave are most im- 
pressed with the lofty domes and deep pits which 
are found in some portions of this underground 
domain. Of those that are accessible to the visitor 
without great danger and fatigue the best known 
are Gorin's Dome, the Bottomless Pit, MammotlL 
Dome, Napoleon's Dome, the Mael- 
strom, and Scylla and Charyb- 
dis, all but two of which are 
situated in that intricate and 
wonderful portion called the 
Labyrinth. The first 
named is viewed through 
a natural circular opening 
in the wall quite three- 
fourths the way from the 
bottom. Illuminated by the 
guides from a point still above that at which-^Jthe. 
visitor is stationed the effect of the brilliant lights 
on the walls beyond, white as alabaster, fluted 
and folded in a thousand curious and fantastic 
forms, is indescribably grand and impressive. 
Coupled with the great size of the space, every- 
where shading off into infinite gloom, is the roar of 
falling water, or the splash of Lilliputian cascades 




if seen in the dry season. Below, but beyond 
observation, runs a portion of Echo River- into 
which, from a station high above that occupied by 
the guide, it is possible to throw stones the fall of 
which awakens ten thousand sounds and echoes. 
Stalactitic matter, of purest white, lends variety 
to the vertical walls ; where this is wanting the 
method of work of falling water, in bygone ages, 
is clearly seen. Not far away is the Bottomless 
Pit, and above it, rising sheer to the topmost level 
of the cavern, is Shelby's Dome, named for the first 
Governor of Kentucky. Its bottom, for notwith- 
standing its name it has one, is nearly two hun- 
dred feet below the level at which the observer 
stands. For many years it was an insurmountable 
obstacle to further exploration in this direction until 
Bishop, the original explorer of the cave, finally 
crossed it on a cedar sapling, but not without great 
danger. 

This pit is one of three, the other two being 
Scylla and Charybdis, well-named and in the rela- 
tion to each other of those celebrated dangers of 
mythologic fame. These two pits are not to be 
seen by visitors, their approach being by a devious 
and dangerous passage which opens from River 










MARTHA WASHINGTON'S STATUE 



Hall, nearly a mile distant. But of all the pits 
which the visitor sees, that called Mammoth Dome 
is the largest and most impressive. From top to 
bottom the distance is nearly two hundred and 
eighty feet; while at the end, the Ruins of Karnak, 
^,^^^. . formerly called the Egyp- 

tian Temples, stand out 
in bold relief. These 
giant columns indeed 
closely resemble the 
works of art of some 
long-lost underground 
race, and it does not 
require a very vivid 
imagination to see the 
great recesses and 
storied walls the scene 
weird activity or to 
imagine them peopled with myriads of gnomes 
and sprites upon whose labors the visitor is an 
unwelcome intruder. The Mammoth Dome should 
be visited by every person who desires to see 
water at work and completing a task begun 
away back in earth's history. The shadows on 
the walls, fitfully moving with change of light and 




varying ever as the 
onlooker moves, seem 
alive, and the eternal 
gloom, dispelled but 
little by the glare of 
lamps, recalls scenes 
made famous by the 
pencil of the immortal 
Dore, first voiced by Dante : 




ECHO RIVBr' 



"There do the hideous harpies make their nests, 
Who chased the Trojans from the Strophades, 
With sad announcement of impending doom; 
Broad wings have they, and necks and faces human, 
And feet with claws, and their great bellies fledged." 

But why attempt the impossible? Why attempt 
to paint a scene beyond the skill of any? Alone, 
in such a place, one sees only spirit life and un- 
canny forms; sees only the deformed and uncouth, 
the strange and chimerical. The very stillness be- 
comes eloquent and the blackness populous; the 
dripping of water chants a thousand poems. **0 
Night and Solitude! Ye are the peopled; the full of 
life!" 



MAAIMOTH CAVE IS NEAR THE MAIN LINE OF THE LOUISVILLE & NASHVILLt 
RAILROAD. 90 MILES SOUTH OF LOUISVILLE. KY. BRANCH 
RAILROAD DIRECT TO THE CAVE FROM 
GLASGOW JUNCTION. 




STOP-OVER ALLOWED ON ALL TICKETS WITHIN THEIR LIMITS. AND ON 

ALL TICKETS THE DESTINATION OF WHICH IS A POINT ON THE 

LOUISVILLE jk NASHVILLE RAILROAD REGARDLESS 

OF LIMIT. 



C. L. STONE. Genl Pass. Agent, 

Louisville, Ky 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



lllliiliiiiil 

014 612 345 4 



mm 



/Ma Cjiii 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 612 345 4 ^ 



